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Topic: The 2018 melting season (Read 519992 times)

I think the extreme atlantification and affiliated retreat of the ice edge (which will probably get quite a bit worse in the next few weeks) will allow a lot of heat to penetrate above 80N during the beginning of the freezing season. The area between Greenland and the North Pole will likely not begin adding thickness in earnest until quick a bit later than the past few years, and its already much thinner. This could set up next summer for extreme fragility in what used to be the prime region of thick ridged ice.

magnamentis

reading the ever increasing amount of fu...k and hell kind of vocabulary here, i guess we have a huge amount of HarleyDavidson driving "Chapters" acquired to the forum, not saying that would be a bad thing, would bring us electric Harleys a bit sooner perhaps LOL

I see that darkness. More space between the tiny floes (that is, within the mélange) would make the appearance darker. The 2018 image is, however, fuzzier than the others, so I wonder if there is some light mist or fog affecting the image. The biggest floes are a bit darker (2018 vs. 2008), too, and I doubt thickness is an issue for them.

Some years (2008 and 2016) show significantly more melting in the Greenland fjords than 2018, but snow cover on the Greenland rocks appears similar to me.

Does the setup of the past months resemble a two-cell system instead of the classic three-cell system setup in the NH? If it stays like that also for the winter, what are the consequences?

The way the lows were repeatedly ratcheted into the Arctic seas, attached to troughs drawing hot air from the mid latitudes suggests the Arctic cannot keep itself separated from the lower latitudes. As a relative newcomer here I don't have a sense of how new or unusual that is, when time permits I'll try to find reanalysis of previous summers for comparison(Climate Reanalyser publishes the whole years worth at the start of the new year).

JAXA is offline for a few days. Arctic ROOS' ssmi is now showing extent at record low since a couple of days ago, just at the time the recent years begin to diverge(area starts doing the same about a week or 10 days earlier - on ROOS, area is still relatively high, a week ago it was highest for the decade!). 2012 started its big plunge a few days further into August. Interesting times.

I think everything to the left of the red arrow is, especially if melting conditions aren't unfavorable, at risk to completely meltout, seeing the state of the ice. Luckily only about 6 weeks till melting season ends.

And the part between the orange lines doesn't look that good either, if that melts out the CAB falls apart...

...The way the lows were repeatedly ratcheted into the Arctic seas, attached to troughs drawing hot air from the mid latitudes suggests the Arctic cannot keep itself separated from the lower latitudes. As a relative newcomer here I don't have a sense of how new or unusual that is, when time permits I'll try to find reanalysis of previous summers for comparison(Climate Reanalyser publishes the whole years worth at the start of the new year)....

It's new circa ~2000s. Suggesting to check 1990s or better even 1980s, if possible, to see the "old mode". On the largest scale, we have Arctic amplification reducing temperature difference between Arctic and temperate belt, which process is weakening Polar Vortex, which leads to more and more frequent and large masses of air to move in and out of Arctic rapidly. Which is obviously one major positive feedback which further accelerates the amplification, of course.

Damn, 13C is not cold. Can someone comment on the historical precedent for this short of thing?

There might be a bit of a Chinook/Föhn effect as the wind seems to cross the (relative) heights of NE Greenland, could make as much as 5-7 deg C extra, this doesn't help too much, dry heat melts the ice just as well. On Torne River valley they may wait for these to happen every spring as ice might break and let them to set their nets again after winter fishing.

Today is the big day -- when the UH AMSR2 archive first kicked in, making 2012 available for day-on-day comparisons henceforth with this season. That is fortunate because the Great Arctic Cyclone arrived soon after, allowing us to see its effect on sea ice concentration (and allowing us to guess what something similar this month might do for 2018).

Quote

On August 2, 2012, an extratropical low formed over Siberia. During the next few days, the storm slowly drifted into the Arctic Ocean, while gradually strengthening. On August 5, the storm reached the Arctic Ocean and began to rapidly intensify, while drifting closer to the North Pole.

On August 6, the extratropical cyclone reached a peak intensity of 962 mbar (28.4 inHg), while centered about halfway between Alaska and the North Pole. At this point, the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012 was the strongest summer Arctic storm on record, since the beginning of records in 1979.

Afterward, the storm slowly began to weaken, while drifting towards Canada. On August 12, the cyclone made landfall in the northern Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and slowly moved eastward across land, while rapidly weakening.

Technical note: It is possible to spoof javascript resp. CSS3/ jQuery (unsupported in forum software) within mp4 for purposes of comparing two images via a comparison image slider that reveals a movable portion of a second window, to be posted here in a bit for Aug 1st 2012/2018.

From what I can tell, we're not beating 2012 anytime soon! Look how long the ice off of East Siberia has been there and the pack looks just as strong. If the High was over Beaufort to melt the weak ice, this may have gone faster... This will definitely weaken the pack for next year though!!

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Self-sufficiency and Durability to disasters are the absolute keys to nearly any disaster you can think of such as War, economic collapse, pandemics, Global warming, quakes, volcanoes, Hurricanes... all of which put solar farms etc. and power grids at risk!

From what I can tell, we're not beating 2012 anytime soon! Look how long the ice off of East Siberia has been there and the pack looks just as strong. If the High was over Beaufort to melt the weak ice, this may have gone faster... This will definitely weaken the pack for next year though!!

You are unfortunately likely incorrect, COPERNICUS shows almost all of the ESS going "poof" in the next week or so. Much of the Laptev is also about to meet the same fate. If we are not neck and neck with 2012 by 8/10 I will be quite surprised.

I think the main question is now whether the lobe of higher concentration ice on the ATL side of the pole will melt out entirely or not. At the moment, forecast models are not promising for its sustained existence.

magnamentis

From what I can tell, we're not beating 2012 anytime soon! Look how long the ice off of East Siberia has been there and the pack looks just as strong. If the High was over Beaufort to melt the weak ice, this may have gone faster... This will definitely weaken the pack for next year though!!

You are unfortunately likely incorrect, COPERNICUS shows almost all of the ESS going "poof" in the next week or so. Much of the Laptev is also about to meet the same fate. If we are not neck and neck with 2012 by 8/10 I will be quite surprised.

I think the main question is now whether the lobe of higher concentration ice on the ATL side of the pole will melt out entirely or not. At the moment, forecast models are not promising for its sustained existence.

he said:

how long it has been there, not how long it will be there

further i agree with him, at least when is was looking closely the current bad conditions for the ice is either over CAB or over open water while where the ice that would melt within days under the same conditions is relatively cold and will stay that way for quite some days and in about 2-3 weeks momentum will decease rapidly except if we would see a really long living GAC that at the same time woule bring very warm air into the pacific side. the atlantic side will further give way but never in a way that would make a new low or big surprise.

the ice in the beaufort and adjacent to it is very vulnerable but as mentioned above, that's exactly where temps will be below average, even below zero over vast stretches.

look at barrows temps, 1C as compared to around 10C before and even 17C a week ago and that's without cooling ice and it's influenced by warmth over land.

it will go very much lower than we thought in june IMO but witout an extraordinary weather event it won't do a new low IMO.

let's see and try not to sound like things would be certain and inevitable, we don't know which is why we should reason carefully.

also the warm winds into the CAB are not blowing infinitely as stated above, they are absolutely certainly to both, to abate as well as to cool down eventually.

n what looked like the greatest 'game-on ' shot ever I've been watching a 13x8km chunk of ice get set up and booted off the N. tip of Greenland into the Arctic 'soup'. Since launch 2 days ago it has travelled over 30 km toward the pole . I for one will be following it's progress .. The last few days action N of Greenland had me go back to look at the fun in late Feburary when a similar event weatherwise was a revelation on nighttime Worldview.for winter viewing of the ice .. this leads you to Worldview back in 02/2018 https://tinyurl.comydyv7ch6 .. damn .. I don't know how to underline .. lol .. it does it itself ..

For the creative among you .. either event would be well worth a gif .. b.c.

ps .. I am enjoying the 'observer' status that Worldview (and mahy of you ) allow me at such a pivotal time ..

At tropicaltidbits.com, all of the NAVGEM, GFS and ECMWF forecasts agree that the big high pressure system currently dominating weather over the Arctic Ocean will remain strong for at least the next week.

NASA's Worldview display shows that the high pressure has already cleared away the clouds over much of the Arctic Basic, especially on the Russian side - as shown in the screen capture below.

This persistent high pressure would presumably have wreaked havoc with the Arctic sea ice pack if it had parked up sooner after the summer solstice, exposing the ice to direct sunlight at its strongest. Even in the first half of August, there will still be plenty of solar energy shining down on the exposed ice in the Arctic Basin. How much deterioration of the ice will it cause anyway?

I AGREE with the down trend of this graph and an eventual blue ocean but I think it hides the fact that the last remaining ice is at the center of the pack and thus, well away from land where heat builds the most and melts the ice the fastest, thus a 'slight tapering off' of the downward trend of the graph should be expected... Really just semantics at this point though as the extreme weather and jet stream disruption (not to mention warming of the ESAS) are already affecting us. Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!! I agree the ice 'could go' any year now... a 1-in-6 chance per year depending on the weather seems just about right!? Add the expected El Nino this winter and Next year I bet those odds are DOUBLED!!! I have followed you guys almost hourly for two years now...! I think we all are surprised to see the ice hanging on after 80-N temps kept so high in the fall of 2016 and so on with such drastic global ice measures! I'm a published disaster planner... One thing I will guarantee you is that events down here due to rain bombs, extreme TEMPS and the disasters they brew will get SOO bad that even when the arctic boils with Everglades level heat, other Hurricane Harvey-level disasters down here will be SOO BAD few will even notice!!!

Self-sufficiency and Durability to disasters are the absolute keys to nearly any disaster you can think of such as War, economic collapse, pandemics, Global warming, quakes, volcanoes, Hurricanes... all of which put solar farms etc. and power grids at risk!

Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!!

Actually, counter intuitively, the greater probability is that it will continue to freeze after the CAB becomes "ice free" - less than 1 million KM2 of ice in winter.

The reason for this is cold continents/warm ocean. Heat lost from land during low insolation will permit temperatures to drop far further than they will over the ocean, and by extension will tend to cool Hudson Bay as it is pretty much completely land locked.

Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!!

Actually, counter intuitively, the greater probability is that it will continue to freeze after the CAB becomes "ice free" - less than 1 million KM2 of ice in winter.

The reason for this is cold continents/warm ocean. Heat lost from land during low insolation will permit temperatures to drop far further than they will over the ocean, and by extension will tend to cool Hudson Bay as it is pretty much completely land locked.

Since we are speculating, I would add to this that IMHO if the CAB goes ice free it will be because of changing ocean currents and a loss of the stratification between cold fresh water and warm salty water. If those changes occur, the Hudson would be largely insulated because of its landlocked location.

Therefore, I would expect it to continue to freeze as long as the air in the NH stays cold enough.

Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!!

Actually, counter intuitively, the greater probability is that it will continue to freeze after the CAB becomes "ice free" - less than 1 million KM2 of ice in winter.

The reason for this is cold continents/warm ocean. Heat lost from land during low insolation will permit temperatures to drop far further than they will over the ocean, and by extension will tend to cool Hudson Bay as it is pretty much completely land locked.

Since we are speculating, I would add to this that IMHO if the CAB goes ice free it will be because of changing ocean currents and a loss of the stratification between cold fresh water and warm salty water. If those changes occur, the Hudson would be largely insulated because of its landlocked location.

Therefore, I would expect it to continue to freeze as long as the air in the NH stays cold enough.

It’s hard to say, there’s a lot of factors. The CAB will eventually melt out here soon, and no specific factor needs to be the reason.

Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!!

Actually, counter intuitively, the greater probability is that it will continue to freeze after the CAB becomes "ice free" - less than 1 million KM2 of ice in winter.

The reason for this is cold continents/warm ocean. Heat lost from land during low insolation will permit temperatures to drop far further than they will over the ocean, and by extension will tend to cool Hudson Bay as it is pretty much completely land locked.

And the Hudson Bay Sea is very shallow (and low salinity) - so not much of a heat sink when winter comes (and freezes at a higher temperature).

Wikipedia:-

Quote

The bay is relatively shallow and is considered an epicontinental sea, with an average depth of about 100 m (330 ft) (compared to 2,600 m (8,500 ft) in the Bay of Bengal). It is about 1,370 km (850 mi) long and 1,050 km (650 mi) wide.

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"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!""And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!!

Actually, counter intuitively, the greater probability is that it will continue to freeze after the CAB becomes "ice free" - less than 1 million KM2 of ice in winter.

And I am pretty sure, that the Hudson Bay as well as the North Pole will always* freeze in winter. On the North Pole you have 180 days of no sunlight, that will always be much below zero, no matter what. Average temperature in Winter is around -30°C at the North Pole and -20°C over most of Hudson Bay. So even if temperaturs would raise globally by 15°C, it would still be well below freezing in many areas there and therefore ice would form.

* Well, at least for the next tens of thousands of years. On geological timescales everything can happen.

Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!!

Actually, counter intuitively, the greater probability is that it will continue to freeze after the CAB becomes "ice free" - less than 1 million KM2 of ice in winter.

And I am pretty sure, that the Hudson Bay as well as the North Pole will always* freeze in winter. On the North Pole you have 180 days of no sunlight, that will always be much below zero, no matter what. Average temperature in Winter is around -30°C at the North Pole and -20°C over most of Hudson Bay. So even if temperaturs would raise globally by 15°C, it would still be well below freezing in many areas there and therefore ice would form.

* Well, at least for the next tens of thousands of years. On geological timescales everything can happen.

Not to be annoying but this is not related to the 2018 melt season and belongs in another thread.

Also: the 00z EURO maintains the heat dome over the High Arctic until the end of its run. We may see blips higher and lower here and there due to clouds messing with sensors but, IMO, we will see sustained century+ extent drops through at least the next 10 days. If 2018 doesn't exactly match 2012, this will still put it ahead of all other years in the record, as each and every other summer saw a major slowdown in melt beginning in about seven days.

Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!!

Actually, counter intuitively, the greater probability is that it will continue to freeze after the CAB becomes "ice free" - less than 1 million KM2 of ice in winter.

And I am pretty sure, that the Hudson Bay as well as the North Pole will always* freeze in winter. On the North Pole you have 180 days of no sunlight, that will always be much below zero, no matter what. Average temperature in Winter is around -30°C at the North Pole and -20°C over most of Hudson Bay. So even if temperaturs would raise globally by 15°C, it would still be well below freezing in many areas there and therefore ice would form.

* Well, at least for the next tens of thousands of years. On geological timescales everything can happen.

Not to be annoying but this is not related to the 2018 melt season and belongs in another thread.

Also: the 00z EURO maintains the heat dome over the High Arctic until the end of its run. We may see blips higher and lower here and there due to clouds messing with sensors but, IMO, we will see sustained century+ extent drops through at least the next 10 days. If 2018 doesn't exactly match 2012, this will still put it ahead of all other years in the record, as each and every other summer saw a major slowdown in melt beginning in about seven days.

I highly doubt this. Because 2012 was such a wild humdinger of a year. You've also got to be aware that even with a minimum of 4.2 on Jaxa (third lowest), this puts its 200k ahead of second place (2016 with 4.0) and a 1million ahead of first (2012 with 3.1). It's still pretty darn low, but within the average.

Although there is high pressure, the solar power of the sun is also much lower as it's long after the solstice. It's already bang on average on the Jaxa reading, the average is 75k and the melt yesterday was 75k. See? Where already slowing down from century breaks.

Therefore I think the remaining melt will be more on average. There might be a century drop or two (or three or even four. I'm not disputing the ice is in bad shape, because it is, but the melt is slowing down and the central pack is still pretty tight. That's where the minimum counts. At the moment the final areas that don't really matter in accordance with the minimum are finally melting out) as the arctic finally gets rid of its remaining slush on the Pacific side, but I don't think there won't be "sustained century drops" for another week.

2018 will be low, but not lower than 2016 or 2012 by the end I think.

Of course we could get a GAC and that would really change the game. But under any other scenario, I don't think so.

Direct insolation has been lower in this years melt season due to high cloud cover. It may be that this clear spell makes things worse. We will see. The ice is very mobile in the pack. At the periphery it is constantly moving over anomalously warmer water. (edit: actually, just checked and SSTA is not so high now so...)

Not sure where this question should be log on:With 2007 weather conditions (bi bolar sea saw for a very long period, long period of transpolar drift and long period of High pressure with sun deeply melting the ice in June July and August…) plus a 2012 style GAC, how low the ice extent could go considering the current sea ice state (theoretical question of course with a low probability, but why not?). Maybe I should post it in the ice free thread...

Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!!

Actually, counter intuitively, the greater probability is that it will continue to freeze after the CAB becomes "ice free" - less than 1 million KM2 of ice in winter.

And I am pretty sure, that the Hudson Bay as well as the North Pole will always* freeze in winter. On the North Pole you have 180 days of no sunlight, that will always be much below zero, no matter what. Average temperature in Winter is around -30°C at the North Pole and -20°C over most of Hudson Bay. So even if temperaturs would raise globally by 15°C, it would still be well below freezing in many areas there and therefore ice would form.

I agree.

Even after a summer BOE, ice will still form in the Arctic during the dark, polar winter for many decades. This cover of FYI will look and behave differently, likely thinner due to warmer winters, more mobile even in the dead of winter and more susceptible to melt the following melt season. This is no different than what we are observing in the peripheral seas in the basin. The Beaufort and Chukchi froze late and the resulting ice was far thinner and, as can be seen this year, will melt out despite conditions not conducive to melt.

Direct insolation has been lower in this years melt season due to high cloud cover. It may be that this clear spell makes things worse. We will see. The ice is very mobile in the pack. At the periphery it is constantly moving over anomalously warmer water. (edit: actually, just checked and SSTA is not so high now so...)

Todays ecmwf wam(wave) from Windy

The rapid melt out of large areas of thin ice on the Pacific side should cause a dramatic cooling of SST I would think. Could the open fetch allow surface winds to mix this fresh cold water with warmer water just beneath it?

Portions of the Chukchi are experiencing wave heights of 2 meters on that image. How high must the waves be to get significant mixing?

« Last Edit: August 03, 2018, 02:37:58 PM by Shared Humanity »

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magnamentis

I AGREE with the down trend of this graph and an eventual blue ocean but I think it hides the fact that the last remaining ice is at the center of the pack and thus, well away from land where heat builds the most and melts the ice the fastest, thus a 'slight tapering off' of the downward trend of the graph should be expected... Really just semantics at this point though as the extreme weather and jet stream disruption (not to mention warming of the ESAS) are already affecting us. Shouldn't we be looking at the Hudson bay to go blue ocean year-long, long before the CAB does?!! I agree the ice 'could go' any year now... a 1-in-6 chance per year depending on the weather seems just about right!? Add the expected El Nino this winter and Next year I bet those odds are DOUBLED!!! I have followed you guys almost hourly for two years now...! I think we all are surprised to see the ice hanging on after 80-N temps kept so high in the fall of 2016 and so on with such drastic global ice measures! I'm a published disaster planner... One thing I will guarantee you is that events down here due to rain bombs, extreme TEMPS and the disasters they brew will get SOO bad that even when the arctic boils with Everglades level heat, other Hurricane Harvey-level disasters down here will be SOO BAD few will even notice!!!

i share your views, looking at the chart one can perhaps already see a hint to a slow down in the trend while of course a slow down does not mean it wont reach the zero line relatively soon, just perhaps due to the location of the remaining ice the degradation will flatten a bit.

this only applies to the trend as such while every outlier or extreme melt year can bring us intermittently down to zero ( or the million for those who like arbitrary artificial criteria)